Search This Blog

The latest...and some rambling at the end

C's pink eye is pretty much cleared up. It's still a little red but there is no swelling and no discharge, so that's good! Y's pink eye is worse. His eye is swollen almost all the way shut. Honestly I'm having a difficult time getting it open and keeping it open to get his eye drops in. Poor little guy! More and more junk is coming out of it too. Thankfully his other eye is clear so far - I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to have it that badly in both eyes! We are doing the drops in both eyes though, so hopefully that will prevent any outbreak in the other eye. So far all the rest of us are clear. My hands are chapped from washing them so much but hey, that's the price you pay I guess! Also, the laundry is overwhelming. I'm washing their bedding and towels every day or every other day, keeping their clothes washed, and washing just about anything else I think might have made contact them throughout their days. Ha!

The family that was supposed to do respite for us this weekend decided they couldn't do it since the boys have pink eye. Like I said, they have nine kids right now, so I totally understand! So we ended up calling our friend Amanda to come over to our house and watch the boys for a few hours so we could go to my mother-in-law's 60th birthday party. The little boys napped while she was here, and the oldest was at his friend's house, so she helped clean our kitchen up! It was TOTALLY messy. I hadn't cleaned up at all after dinner on Friday night because I took D to the skating rink. We didn't get home until like 10:45 which is almost getting too late for me (yes I know, I'm getting old!). Then Saturday morning I went grocery shopping by myself while husband watched the boys, then when I got home all there was time for was eating lunch and getting the boys down for their naps. So...yes. It was a mess. But now it's pretty much spic-and-span!

We got the court report in the mail. Where it talked about the mom's progress thus far it said "Poor progress is being made..." Other than that there weren't a whole lot of changes to the previous report. The next court date is in December. Another thing that came with the court report was a notice that the Project Permanency hearing would be happening in March. I think that is where they will take a hard look at the case plan and the mom's progress and determine if changes need to be made (i.e., changing the permanency objective from reunification to adoption).

D still thinks he's going to be home by Christmas. It makes me very sad. I'm kind of surprised they already scheduled the Project Permanency hearing, even though it's not for a long time. I have totally mixed feelings about it. I pray for their mom all the time, that she will find the resources and support that she needs and make the changes she needs to make to be a good mom for these kids. But at the same time I do love these boys. It's kind of sad that for me to become a mother someone else has to lose their children, you know?

I didn't really intend to talk about this, but we're here so here we go. Both my sister in law and my sister are pregnant right now with their first children. I am 4 years older than both of them. All three of us expected and/or were told that we would have a difficult time getting pregnant and that we possibly would never be able to. Both of them, on complete flukes, got pregnant. One is due in December, the other in April. I am totally thrilled for them, especially my sister. Her husband is very against the idea of adoption (for them, not in general) and basically told her that if they can't have their own kids, they won't be having any. So I am really happy for her because this may have been the only way she would have been able to have kids. He may have changed his mind down the road but that's not the point of this blog.

I've always wanted to be a mom. Though honestly when I thought about what my family would look like, I always saw all different races - I never pictured blond haired green eyed white children. I've always been very open to the idea of adoption, of fostering children, etc. For a while the thought of getting pregnant even didn't really appeal to me. I mean you gain weight, have to eat healthy (to some extent), no coffee, possibly have to go on bed rest (oh the horror!) etc. Then you have to push a (very small) human being through a VERY small hole in your body, then provide for it's constant needs, wake up in the middle of the night, blah blah blah. Stretch marks, saggy boobs...I mean the whole thing just kind of sounds unappealing when you put it like that!

Then at some point, I decided that maybe I DID want to get pregnant. So we tried. Unsuccessfully. And it sounds really selfish, but I think I found some comfort in the fact that my sister and my sister-in-law might have the same problems. When they say "Misery loves company" it is definitely true. Not that I was miserable. I don't think I really ever dealt with the grief. I just kind of shrugged it off and thought to myself "OK, plan A did not work, time for plan B!" which is really how I approach life in general. But now it is very real. My mom is the only one that has asked me about it and talking it over with her was very helpful. She just so happened to ask me the day after I had a dream about actually being pregnant. I don't know how moms have such good timing about such things!

I'd say the crappiest thing about my deal is that I have polycycstic ovarian syndrome. I won't go into details but suffice to say my periods are very irregular. So after it's been a few months without one, I inevitably think "well, maybe..." and then I wait several weeks and keep thinking about it more and more, until finally I take a test and NO. I'm not pregnant. I should be used to it by now after so many years but I'm kind of gullible sometimes. :)

So anyway, it's a strange position to be in all around. I'm waiting for children, but in a totally different way than my sister and my sister-in-law. And for me to gain, someone else has to lose. And granted it is usually their own personal choices that will cause this loss, but you can just see the cycle. Most of these moms that have kids in foster care used to be in foster care themselves. They don't know how to raise children; they never had a (consistent) mom to show them. Many of them simply aged out of the system, never being adopted. There is such a huge need for families to do foster care. So many people say "I could never do it because I wouldn't be able to give the kids up. I would love them too much and get too attached." But I say, if people who love kids won't do foster care, then who will?

No idea how I got on this tangent. I am done now. :)

My husband took D to a baptism service at church to night. I am praying for D that he will see something during it that will change his life. If he would just open his ears and listen during church I think it would really have an impact on him. He says he believes in God and Jesus. I have had the sin/repentance/heaven/hell talk with him but he didn't really seem too shaken up about it. He always complains about going to church. I just wish he had some Christian friends, but we don't know anyone with kids his age, unfortunately. All our friends are our age and if they have kids at all they are just little still. Not too many 27 year olds have 11 year old kids!

The End!

Get link

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Google+

Email

Other Apps

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's been a year since I last wrote. So much has happened! Way too much to put here, but suffice to say it has been crazy. Our oldest has headed off to boot camp for the Marines, he'll be in the reserves. The other kids are 9, 7, 6, 4, 2.

Maybe I'll have time to catch up on stuff later, though I'm feeling a little weird about posting too much online. It's scary out there in the internets!

I'm writing because our journey in Foster Care Land might not be over, like we sort of thought that it was! Let me explain.

In January 2016 hubby's brother and brother's girlfriend had their son taken into foster care. They didn't tell anyone, and their son was with a foster parent (a stranger, no one in the family) for 3 months until hubby's mom found out. She contacted the state and was able to be the foster parent for the little boy. Brother and his girlfriend got straightened out, and got him back about 9 months later.

So I took the three older boys to get their eyes checked. Cassius already had glasses, but only needed to wear them at school. He kept them in the case in his backpack. A few weeks before the last day of school he said "Mommy, when are you going to fix my glasses?" Ah, well, I guess when you let me know that they are broken, son! They were unsalvageable and by that time it really didn't matter too much anyway. I have no idea how long they were broken before he let me know about them. D lost his glasses, or broke them or...something. He typically looses them within a few weeks of starting the school year. Then since Y will be starting kindergarten this year we got his eyes checked as well. We had an inking he maybe needed some help. Yep, his right eye is 20/100 and his left is 20/400! So he needs to wear glasses all the time. Even with glasses the ophthalmologist said she could only get his vision to 20/30, but obviously that is still much much better.

So I'm sure I mentioned that I sent bio mom a message a few weeks ago just checking in on how she's doing, and I hadn't heard back from her.

Well I finally heard back from her last night. She's in the hospital for her heart and blood pressure, and it's not looking so good. She has struggled with this for a long time, it sounds like it runs in the family. She's still very young, too young to be dealing with this but I guess we don't get to decide what "too young" is. Anyway it sounds like she'll be in the hospital at least for a few more days. And doctors found something else on her liver but aren't sure what it is. She was supposed to find out today but hasn't yet.

She asked me to call her, so I did. She said "You guys are about the only family I have left" meaning people that she actually talks to. :( I was nervous about it because I thought maybe there was a chance of confrontation but it went just fine. She sounded so t…

I am a wife to a wonderful husband, a stay at home mom and homeschool teacher, and a small business owner/employee. Currently living in our home we have 2 dogs, 1 cat, and 5 kids. D is 18 and out on his own, C is 9, Y is 7, Miss M is 6, big surprise Ben (conceived after 5 years of not preventing pregnancy and years after giving up on fertility treatments, then born 11 weeks early) is 4, and our youngest (also a big surprise!) is 2. D, Y and C have been with us since June 2010 and Miss M has been with us since May 2012. Their adoptions were finalized on December 1, 2012 when they left foster care forever!
This blog chronicles our adventures and learning experiences as we endeavor to raise someone else's children (now our own!) to the best of our abilities.